Lehigh Keeps Budgets Intact For Social Services

October 28, 1992|by DAN FRICKER, The Morning Call

The men and women who run Lehigh County's Human Services Department were smiling yesterday as they left the commissioners' annual budget hearings.

The commissioners cut no money from the 1993 budgets of the offices of Mental Health-Mental Retardation and Children and Youth Services, and none from the office budget of Human Services Director George L. Sacarakis.

The grins contrasted with the grimaces of department and office heads whose budgets were slashed during the last two weeks. The commissioners are trying to pare $3 million in county revenues from the $165 million budget package.

It also reflected the near reverence of the Bausch administration and the board toward social services during this time of economic hardship.

"I don't have any recommendations to change this budget at all," Commissioner Emrich M. Stellar Jr. said as the board finished reviewing the Mental Health-Mental Retardation budget.

Scores of angry employees had bombarded the commissioners with letters and phone calls after their vote last week to eliminate the across-the-board pay increase.

But human services occupied most of the 2-1/2-hour hearing attended by more than 50 people, many of them social service workers, administrators or parents of children who benefit from department programs.

Robert P. McCaffrey, head of Mental Health-Mental Retardation, presented a 46-page report of the office's accomplishments and funding during the 1991-92 fiscal year. He ticked off the accomplishments of his staff during his first year as administrator, often pausing to elaborate on the stark list in the report's introduction.

The office serves 4,749 mentally ill and 1,196 mentally retarded.

The commissioners praised the report and urged other offices to follow McCaffrey's model.

"This is the best budget proposal that I've seen in the seven years that I've been sitting here," Commissioner Jane S. Baker said.

Commissioner John P. McHugh offered the only criticism, saying Allentown School District had failed to get federal grants for its Student Assistance Program. He urged Sacarakis to push the district to apply for grants.

"We lost thousands of dollars coming into this community," said McHugh, retired principal of William Allen High School.

Mental Health-Mental Retardation's $16 million budget will make it the state's fourth-largest office, with the county contributing $1.3 million. Private and state grants fund the remainder of the budget.

The board made no cuts in the $9.4 million budget of Children and Youth, which aids 1,331 victims of sexual and physical abuse and neglect, office Director David C. Ungerer said.

Sacarakis' $143,796 office budget also was untouched.

In reinstating the pay increase, Stellar said the board will meet with county employees later this year to discuss reforming the salary scale.

"There is no governmental pay scale that is going to hold for eternity because there will be inequities over time. I used to work for the state and it was the same process," Stellar said.